I remember a year freezing rain followed a heavy snow, encasing yellow, red, brown, and green stems in ice. Shrubs were weighted down and bent over, like old women with crumbling bones, their long hair trapped under a layer of snow.

Monday, January 30, 2012

Thanks for joining me for Mailbox Monday! MM was created by Marcia at A girl and her books (fka The Printed Page), who graciously hosted it for a long, long time, before turning it into a touring meme (details here).

Sunday, January 29, 2012

Although vampire stories had been around earlier, it is Bram Stoker's sensational 1897 Dracula that promulgated the iconic version of the garlic-hating, crucifix-fearing, blood-sucking nobleman as Count Dracula, king of the vampires.

The novel is told through a series of documents, including journals, letters, telegrams, ship's logs, and newspaper stories, most written by the protagonists to memorialize their remarkable adventures. The various writings track the growing comprehension of the vampire hunters, their planning, and the chase for Count Dracula as he attempts to relocate from Transylvania to London.

The book feels fresh and new, despite its age and multiple adaptations. There is an innovative air to it, in part because of its fast-changing epistolary format, and also because of the gadgetry adopted by the characters. For example, the doctor dictates his journal to phonographic cylinders and the heroine brings a manual typewriter on their journey.

But mostly the book is an excellent adventure story of a band of heroes fighting off an invading force of evil. It is particularly exciting because the rules of engagement are always changing -- even as the heroes, led by Professor Abraham Van Helsing from Amsterdam, figure out the danger and adopt traditional vampire-fighting methods, Count Dracula adapts and grows stronger and wiser. The tension is always increasing as the good guys and Dracula vie for the upper hand, right up to the breathtaking finale.

It also counts as one of my audiobooks for the 2012 Audio Book Challenge. The unabridged audio version I listened to was very good, although I far preferred the male reader to the female reader. She went a little overboard with the breathy Victorian sentimentality. He was excellent, especially with his Dutch accent for Van Helsing that brought a necessary comic touch and made the professor the real star of the show.

"The Thunder Tree" was a huge, hollow old cottonwood in which the author and his brother once found shelter as children from a life-threatening hailstorm. The tree grew along the High Line Canal, built in the late 19th century as part of a grand plan to bring river water to the Western plains for irrigation. Only a portion of the canal was ever built, but that portion happened to run through the city of Aurora, Colorado, where the author lived as a child and young adult. This book is a collection of essays about the High Line Canal and the butterflies, magpies, cottonwoods, and other living things that existed nearby. Pyle's recollections about growing up in Aurora with his family and friends in the 1950s add a personal dimension. In a broader sense, this book is about the relationship between people and natural areas and how each affects the other. Pyle, who has a Ph.D. in ecology from Yale, is the author of Wintergreen as well as several guides to butterflies. - William H. Wiese, Iowa State Univ. Lib., Ames

In our mid-fifties, my husband and I left the toys and noise of urban society for the company of jumping mice, winter wrens, and dark nights full of stars and cricket song.

I stumble groggily to the propane heater, match box in hand, twist open the tank valves, and depress the red button to the count of thirty.

-- from the opening chapter.

Publisher's Description:

To the Woods is a tale of adventure, inspiration, and living life in concert with nature. It is the true story of Evelyn Searle Hess, who, in her late fifties, walked away from the world of modern conveniences to build a new life with her husband on twenty acres of wild land in the foothills of Oregon’s coast range mountains. To the Woods describes Evelyn’s day-to-day struggles, failures, and discoveries. It tracks the natural history of place through the seasons. It wrestles with issues like human impact on the ecology of our planet.

A Few More Pages hosts Book Beginnings every Friday. The event is open for the entire week.

Thursday, January 26, 2012

2011 Battle of the Prizes, British Version: January 1, 2011 to January 31, 2012

This challenge pits winners of the English Man Booker Prize against winners of the Scottish James Tait Black Memorial Prize in a British Version of the Battle of the Prizes. Good thing it ran until the end of this month, so I could finish.

I read four books for the 2011 challenge, two Booker winners and two James Tait Black winners. I drew no big conclusions about the two prizes, other than the James Tait Black prize is no "me too" award -- it stands on its own. Both prizes have been around for many years, but only three books have won both. Also, I have a general, perhaps unsubstantiated, feeling that the Bookers get to be more famous but that the Blacks are undercover gems.

There are plenty of great novels of ideas out there; books that cause a reader to question assumptions and wrestle with big issues. What makes The Mandelbaum Gate stand out is Muriel Spark's presentation of her ideas against the backdrop of early-1960s Jerusalem, a city recently divided between Israel and Jordon.

Barbara Vaughan is a British, half-Jewish, Catholic convert on a pilgrimage to Jerusalem, determined to see the holy sites on both sides of the divided city while she waits for her agnostic, archeologist boyfriend to secure an annulment of his first marriage from the Vatican and return to his archeological dig on the Jordanian side of the border. Aided by an amnesiac British diplomat, a Christian Arab merchant, and a family of charming and corrupt travel agents, Vaughan survives her adventures with a mix of stiff-upper-lip British fortitude and religious fatalism.

The dramatic setting if the perfect foil for Vaughan's struggle to unify the conflicting parts of her own identity. Her struggle, coupled with a little cloak and dagger espionage and mildly farcical sexual exploits, make for a compelling read. Anthony Burgess included The Mandelbaum Gate on his list of best novels, calling it "a well-wrought and stimulating novel hard to forget."

OTHER REVIEWS

If you would like your review of this or any other Muriel Spark book listed here, please leave a comment with a link and I will add it.

Thanks for joining me for Mailbox Monday! MM was created by Marcia at A girl and her books (fka The Printed Page), who graciously hosted it for a long, long time, before turning it into a touring meme (details here).

Sunday, January 22, 2012

The opening make sense when you realize that the novel is told through a series of documents -- journals, letters, telegrams, newspaper stories, etc.

This is excellent! I do not read any vampire books, as a rule, so maybe I am enjoying this one so much because it isn't a worn-out story for me. I am continually surprised by how fresh and modern the book feels, even though this one -- the original -- was published in 1897.

Saturday, January 21, 2012

The Mysterious Affair at Styles is Agatha Christie's first published novel and introduces readers to her famous hero, Hercules Poirot, along with a couple of his stalwart sidekicks, Detective Chief Inspector James Japp and Captain Arthur Hastings, who narrates.

Hastings – who fancies himself an amateur sleuth – happens to be visiting friends at Styles Court, their English country manor, when a mysterious death occurs. His friend Poirot, a WWI refugee from Belgium, happens to be billeted in the local village, et voilà, the two join forces to unravel the complicated mystery. With a dead matriarch, her shady younger husband, two step-sons, various dependants and family retainers, the enticing wife of a neighboring farmer, and assorted villagers, there are plenty of possible suspects.

At times, the long story gets a little too complicated, with red herrings swimming all over the place and clues overlapping every which way. But there are a few very good twists, some clever scenes, and many funny bits. The book proves Christie a master of the genre from the get go.